There was no rush of wind.
No sudden pulse of power swept across the land.
This was no curse.
It was bloody damnation.
—
The doors opened without persuasion as he breached the threshold, his steps hurried, his breathing labored, his voice scarcely distinguishable above the pounding rhythm of his heart. The stack of parchment slipped from the nurse's hold when he grasped her arm, when he begged her assistance.
"Please, my wife—she's gone into labor—"
"Sir—"
"The baby, she's early—it wasn't meant to be this soon. Please, you must help her."
The nurse, a woman with every appearance of sharing his physical age, set her mouth in a patient line while unlocking his iron grip.
"Sir, where is your wife?"
He turned quick circles, his eyes conducting a frantic search. There, at the entrance, just inside the automated doors, she walked slowly (she forbade him from referring to her gestational gait by its actually name—"Compare me to a duck. One. More. Time."), one hand at her back, the other clutching her stomach.
"Emma!"
He nearly trampled an elderly couple and their spotted dog to the ground in his rush to meet her.
She accepted his proffered hand with a calm smile. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you forgot about me."
"Emma, Love, I'm so sorry."
"Would you relax?" She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "You'd think the world was ending. And last I checked, that hasn't been the case since—hey," she must have read the panic in his eyes; removing the hand from her stomach, she cradled his cheek, brushing her thumb along his scar, "don't do that. Don't get lost in all the possible ways this could go wrong. We're going to meet our kid today."
He exhaled a shaky breath. "And that doesn't terrify you?"
Emma's smile only grew. As it did, the anxiety was lifted like a weight from Killian's shoulders. "Not this time."
—
His lips trembled as he pulled away, his tears lending no life to her skin, devoid of warmth. He caressed her layered tresses, a paler shade of gold. The words he'd come here to say failed to form—neither his heart nor his tongue could bear them.
The door opened behind him, casting a narrow shaft of light across her ivory dress.
"Killian?" Came the voice of her father, the uncharacteristic timidity of which matched his approaching steps. "Everyone's waiting."
"Let them bloody wait."
He didn't recoil when David rested a hand on his shoulder, heavy with the weight of understanding. "What happened isn't your fault."
Killian gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to growl at his father-in-law like some feral beast.
"I know how I would feel if it were Mary Margaret, but you can't blame yourself."
"Who shall I blame, then?" Killian turned on him, wrenching free of his consolatory grasp. "The child who took her from me?"
"Consider what Emma would want."
"I doubt she bloody well wanted to die."
Several long minutes later, David broke the silence that'd enveloped them. "Will you die with her, and make your child an orphan?"
—
One last scream, a flicker of light, a final push, and Emma's head fell back, her crushing grip relaxed, and the feeling returned to Killian's hand. The cry of a child—their child—filled the room, and for a few short moments, all was right in the world. More than right—it was everything he'd been afraid to hope for. Time slowed to a near stop—Killian's heart didn't know whether to skip or multiply its beats—when he looked upon the most beautiful creature he'd ever beheld. The perfect blend of both her parents—Killian's dark hair, Emma's delicate features. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she continued to wail, but he'd bet anything they were the perfect shade of green—
The machines came to life; bodies pushed past him, forming a barricade that commanded his wife to wake.
She didn't.
They lowered her bed until she lay flat, opened her eyes, repeated her name, called for devices foreign to him—this realm's answer to animation spells.
"Emma?" Killian forged a path through the amassing medical personnel, to her side. "Love, can you hear me?"
They pulled at his arms, linked their own around his torso. "Sir, you can't—"
"Swan? Swan! Emma, wake up—"
They called more men to restrain him, but he fought his way back to her, touching her hand before he felt the pinch in his neck.
—
He stroked soft circles along the back of her hand. He couldn't force himself from her side, though it broke him beyond measure to see her this way.
Leaving meant accepting, and he didn't think he ever could.
Leaving meant turning around, following David out that door, and continuing on. Without her.
Leaving meant saying goodbye.
With a final kiss, absent of magic, empty of hope—he'd never wished for a curse so earnestly in all his centuries—he whispered, "Until the next life, my love," and walked away.